[Review] Anne Glenconner: 'Murder on Mustique'

Mustique. Just let the word enter your brain, savour it, and you simply know: this little island in the Caribbean must have magical views, turquoise seas, lush trees, and purple-flowered bougainvilleas. A slight negative is that its very name via the French word moustique means 'mosquito'.

In 1958 the entire island was bought for £45,000 by Colin Tennant, the later 3rd Baron Glenconner. Mustique was eventually developed into an exclusive and very private retreat where the wealthy and nobility can escape to the privacy they sometimes crave for.

Anne Glenconner is the widow of Colin Tennant and she has written a spectacularly good mystery.

Someone is killing young heirs of great fortunes and no one knows why. Crime is almost unheard of on this little island and just a single policeman, Detective Sergeant Solomon Nile, is stationed on it. Lady Veronica Blake, a clear doublet of Anne Veronica Glenconner herself, takes the helm of the investigation as tropical storm Cristobal threatens to cut off the island completely from the outside world. A true Christie-esque mystery follows.

The storyline is perfectly crafted and Anne Glenconner writes in clear, crisp sentences. You quite understand that she knows the island very well and she's quite perceptive. Those little details other writers so often forget or don't know about are slipped into the story. Anne Glenconner is clearly proud of Mustique and what it stands for. You do feel that most of the suspects are drawn from the real rich and famous that live (or once lived) on Mustique.

As the number of murders increase, Lady Veronica, aka Lady Vee to her friends, is forced to suspect everyone of her inner circle. In the end, scenes worthy of a thriller by Alistair MacLean lead to the exposure of the killer.

Other reviewers grumble a bit about the privileged view Anne Glenconner has about the island, about the name-dropping, but they tend to forget that this was and still is the world she lives in. Every writer knows that you should write about the things you know best.

So, the verdict. Is it any good? Well, in my humble view, it's brilliant. It is a lightweight thriller with an airtight plot. Remembering that Anne Glenconner is born in 1932, one wonders why she didn't start writing mysteries much earlier.

Buy the book here.